The
windfall that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov picked up in the
Oval office last week wasn’t the first time that a Muscovite
emissary was handed an intelligence bonanza by an American
interlocutor with an outsize ego. Given Henry Kissinger’s present
volunteering of his experience in dealing with Russians to the Trump
White House, it’s hardly surprising that he was responsible for a
previous example. Trump apparently exposed US intelligence assets in
Syria; in Kissinger’s case, he gave away data from Egyptian
informants that the Mossad had shared with American services.

This
was in the course of Kissinger’s celebrated “back-channel”
talks with the Soviet Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin –
in which, as Gideon wrote in a
previous HNN article, Kissinger deluded himself that he could
manipulate the Soviets, but they actually and repeatedly hoodwinked
him. The following is adapted from our forthcoming book, The
Soviet-Israeli War, 1967-1973.

Kissinger
claimed in his memoirs
that in their conversation on March 1, 1972 “Dobrynin sought to
engage me in a dialogue designed, in effect, to impose the extreme
Arab program. … When I countered with proposals related to Israel’s
security concerns, he quickly lost interest.” But Kissinger’s own
newly released
summary of a talk later in the month (March 17) is clearly at
odds with this description, and the report that Dobrynin filed is
even more so: “Underlying all of Kissinger’s comments,” the
Soviet envoy wrote, “was the apprehension that the top-secret talks
with us about expediting a Middle East settlement, i.e., about the
future status of Israel itself, could be made public in the US,
especially at a time of heightened emotions during the election
campaign. … The ‘crazy fanatics’ from the Jewish Defense League
would accuse him of ‘betraying Jews’ and might then even make an
attempt on his, Kissinger’s, life.”

Dobrynin
added snidely that his back-channel partner, “it must be said, is
not notable for great personal courage.” But for the Soviet
ambassador, the most startling part of the exchange was when
Kissinger seemed to jeopardize a vital Israeli asset: “Kissinger
remarked, with noticeable hesitation, that Israeli intelligence ‘has
very good sources of information in the highest circles of the
Egyptian government.’ If [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat finds
this out … from the Soviet side, he might share this information
with a certain circle of individuals, from where it could go further,
to Israel. This,” Dobrynin noted, “is the first time Kissinger
has mentioned Israeli agents
in direct proximity to Sadat.”

So
it is rather rich that Kissinger’s memoirs claim he stood up for
Israel’s security interests.
He was obviously referring to – and unmasking -- Ashraf Marwan, a
top aide too Sadat and the son-in-law of the latter’s predecessor
Gamal Abdel Nasser. Marwan had by now been passing information to the
Mossad for over two years.

The
Israelis confided this prized intelligence as a valuable gift to
their US counterparts, expecting a quid pro quo. During her talks in
Washington in early December, Prime Minister Golda Meir gave
President Richard Nixon and Kissinger the transcript that Marwan had
provided of Sadat’s talks with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in
October. Mossad chief Zvi Zamir delivered another copy to CIA
Director Richard Helms, whose experts confirmed (or fell for) its
authenticity.

Congratulating
Zamir on this achievemnent, Meir believed the information so
impressive that sharing it helped move Nixon toward resuming sales of
F-4 Phantom jets to Israel. The Israel Air Force had lost
unsustainable numbers of these aircraft and their crews to
Soviet-manned SAMs in the War of Attrition along the Suez Canal, but
the US administration had been slow to replace them. Marwan’s
information was important enough to bring Nixon around. According to
Israeli informants quoted by historian Uri Bar-Joseph, the document’s
source was not named to the Americans, but it could only be a member
of Sadat’s entourage.

No
wonder, then, that Dobrynin could hardly believe his ears when
Kissinger revealed such an asset, As he wrote to Moscow, “lt
is hard for us to judge the reliability of this information here (it
could also be some kind of disinformation), but we think it necessary
to point out this remark.”

The
great irony is that, as we found, “the Center” in Moscow was
already well aware that Marwan was being operated by Egypt as a
highly effective double agent, and being used by the Soviets too for
feeding disinformation to the Israelis and others. This
super-sensitive matter was highly compartmentalized, so Dobrynin
evidently had not been informed. Assuming the Soviets relayed
Kissinger’s tip to Egypt it only confirmed Marwan’s success. In
any event, his continuing role shows that he was not compromised by
Kissinger’s disclosure – another clue that Marwan’s services
for the Israelis were indeed staged by Egypt. In March 1973, an
expert visitor to Egypt still listed “Mirwan” first among “three
men reportedly closest to Sadat.” In the wee hours of Yom Kippur
that October, he warned Zamir that Egypt and Syria were about to
launch a war the same day – too late to call up and effectively
deploy Israeli reserves. When he fell or was pushed to his death
from a London high-rise in 2007, both countries claimed him as a
hero.

Americans
concerned for their national security can only hope against hope that
Trump’s loquacious bragging likewise told the Russians something
they already knew. But even with Kissinger’s expert advice, the
United States won’t get so lucky every time Trump lets loose.